1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing a print shop system in which a plurality of printers and finishing devices are connected to and managed by a server. In particular, it relates to a method and apparatus for managing and performing print jobs using a plurality of printers and/or finishing devices.
2. Description of Related Art
A professional print shop typically has a plurality of printers and finishing devices connected to a server by a network, where the server controls the printing of customer jobs on one or more printers. The printers and finishing in a print shop typically have different characteristics and capabilities. For example, a print shop typically has both black and white printers and color printers. Printers may also include certain finishing capabilities. Depending on the requirements of the customer's print job specified in a print request (referred to as a job ticket) and the capabilities of the available printer and finishing devices, different parts of the job may be printed using different printers and appropriate off-line finishing devices may used to perform finishing functions. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0042798 describes “a printing system capable of reducing workload of an operator by automatically separating finishing specifics of a printed product into tasks to be performed by an on-line printer and tasks to be performed by an off-line finishing device. The printing system comprises an on-line client, print server and printer as well as an off-line finishing device, and the print server receives the job ticket from the client, separates the finishing specifics included in the received job ticket into those to be performed by the printer and those to be performed by the finishing device based on information regarding specifications and installed options of the printer and finishing device, sets in the printer parameters for the finishing specifics separated and assigned to the printer, and creates data for a finishing device job ticket that includes the finishing specifics separated and assigned to the finishing device.” (Abstract.) U.S. Pat. No. 7,061,636 describes a system and method “for a production monitor controller used in a finishing system wherein the controller uses information concerning the constraints of devices within the system to break the job into job segments wherein each job segment conforms to the constraints of the devices operating on the job segment.” (Abstract.)